Tarantino's The Hateful Eight trailer released

Brand new western set for release 8 Jan 2016, joining Samuel L Jackson, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen back on screen

It came very, very close to never being released, but Quentin Tarantino's eighth film, The Hateful Eight, is finally confirmed to hit the screens, after the first official trailer has just been posted online.

Set for a Christmas Day premiere and a general release on 8 Jan 2016, the western takes place in post-Civil War Wyoming and stars Samuel L Jackson, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, and Bruce Dern, a group of bounty hunters who are forced to take refuge together from a blizzard.

The announcement has put an end to long months of controversy and speculation on whether the film would actually be made after the American director filled a lawsuit against Gawker Media in January 2014 when Defamer posted a link to the leak script and threatened to shelve the film altogether.

The Hateful Eight include some of Quentin Tarantino's favourites, such as Samuel L Jackson, who has starred in Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Inglorious Bastards and Django Unchained, and is now taking the role of the bounty-hunter Major Marquis Warren. Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction) and Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill) are also back with surely to be bloody and violent performances as Oswaldo Mobray and Joe Gage respectively.

When it comes to completely new additions to the director's cast, it's worth mentioning charismatic character actor Walton Goggins, known for his roles in the TV series Justified and Sons of Anarchy, who will now play the Sheriff.

Bounty hunter John Ruth (Russell) is transporting vile criminal Daisy Domergue (Leigh) to be hanged, but takes shelter from a blizzard at Minnie's Haberdashery. Tarantino's eighth film recalls his first, being similarly fuelled by claustrophobia, suspicion and intrigue, but Reservoir Dogs didn't have Hateful Eight's…